Why data centres are the new frontier in the fight against climate change

“Server centres often also burn diesel fuel to keep up with power demands….”

Vincent de Rul, director of energy solutions at EDF Energy agrees, but adds that it’s not just a sustainability challenge that data centres present the IT sector with, it’s also a strategic one.

“Energy costs can make up as much as 70 to 80 percent of operational expenses for a data centre, and simply put, power supply is a business-critical issue for data centres,” says de Rul. “One provider was recently fined over one million pounds for an outage of only 12 minutes, caused by an issue in their local power distribution grid.”

How can we make data centres more sustainable long-term?

A recent IDC study claims that by 2025, worldwide data traffic will have grown by 61 percent to 175 zettabytes, with roughly 75 percent of the population having at least one data interaction every 18 seconds. As global internet penetration rates continue to grow and connected technologies enter the mainstream, it’s clear that the number of data centres worldwide is going to keep on increasing.

If we can’t live without data centres, the IT sector needs to look for alternative models to redress their monstrous carbon footprints – a larger share in total than every country besides the USA, China and India.

The impending climate crisis, however, is by no means a new topic for discussion – and the same can be said for the sustainability of data centres.

“The European Code of Conduct for Data Centre Energy Efficiency programme – a voluntary initiative created in response to increasing energy consumption in the sector – dates back to 2008,” de Rul notes. “Yet there is definitely a renewed focus on the topic, as the ever-increasing demand for data has created a parallel demand for energy.”

Technology heavyweights such as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook have committed to 100 percent renewable energy use in the coming years. However, Greenpeace recently accused Amazon of abandoning that target in order to win business from the oil and gas industry.

Ian Whitfield, CEO of RED Engineering, believes that the ongoing trend for hyperscale data centre construction should be seen as an opportunity for the industry: “Organisations [need to] lead with an energy-efficient design from the onset, adopt the latest in building technology and influence the overall supply chain for the actual sourcing of materials for these buildings.

“By establishing proactive sustainability and efficiency measures at inception, leveraging the latest technology these companies can ensure that the facility can be operated, maintained, repaired and refurbished easily, moving into a more circular use of materials and smarter, cleaner way of consuming energy and water.”

Besides removing the need to build temperature-controlled environments to house data centres, companies have started to explore using renewable energy such as wind, hydro or solar to power data centres and optimising or upgrading technology to improve its efficiency and operating temperature.

Artificial intelligence is also being deployed in some data centres to reduce power consumption. AI can analyse data output, humidity, temperature, and other important statistics in order to find a way to improve efficiency, drive down costs, and reduce total power consumption.

Other data centres have taken a different approach when trying to reduce the amount of energy they waste. Nordic data centre operator DigiPlex has made a pledge that will see the waste heat from its facility in Ulven, Oslo, reused to warm 5,000 apartments in the city. The company has signed an agreement with a local district heating supplier Fortum Oslo to redistribute the heat generated by its data centre, which is also renewably powered.

However, if more ‘big tech’ companies continue to pledge their commitment to using 100 percent renewable energy use, Whitfield believes this could increase demand on renewable energy and intensify the pressure on energy suppliers to keep increasing the amount of renewable energy available.

Reducing the carbon footprint of data centres will go some way to mitigating the urgent climate disaster facing the planet but we can’t just rely on lip service by the likes of Amazon as a solution. Government regulation alongside strengthened industry-wide standards and commitments to so-called Green IT and increased public pressure is desperately needed if there’s to be any long-term, meaningful change. While there is some movement, the pace is frustratingly glacial, and it’s clear there’s still a long way to go.